He also updated to windows 8 on a 9500GT. It stupid to assume its hardware before you eliminate all possibilities of software.

Also memtest isnt the end all for hardware tests as you assume.

Click to expand...

as far as VLC and the graphical corruption and stuff yes absolutely thats the 9500gt not playing nice with windows 8 he should not be running windows 8 on that machine ... the 9500GT isn't supported correctly
but as for the crashing and random errors that screams either memory or motherboard or power or some other funky probly-not-driver-related issues

@op is the machine still having sparatic stability issues Y/N I don't care what its doing while gaming

as far as VLC and the graphical corruption and stuff yes absolutely thats the 9500gt not playing nice with windows 8 he should not be running windows 8 on that machine ...
but as for the crashing and random errors that screams either memory or motherboard or power or some other funky probly-not-driver-related issues

HOW you name me a single program found ANY-WARE the exact process of how software can cause screen corruption(that starts one day out of the blue) or app crashes among completely unrelated processes and I will quit TPU

always start WITH THE HARDWARE and then once the hardware is confirmed to be functioning correctly THEN you move onto testing drivers and software because having a probability of hardware issues makes all the software testing flawed

I am sick of arguing with you on this point mailman every-time you post in a support thread its either
1. its gotta be a bios issue update the bios
2. its gotta be a driver issues try different drivers
3.o its gotta be mspaint causing the gpu drivers to crash
4. naa its a virus inursystemfilesdeleting ur video drivers causing your blackscreen of doom when you power on
:shadedshu
/back on topic
you're card is not officially supported on windows 8 its not fully WDM 1.2 complaint
you have two Options(assuming the rest of the stability issues are resolved)
1. hope Nvidia corrects some of the issues on windows 8
2. upgrade to a more recent gpu a 9500Gt is bloody old

HOW you name me a single program found ANY-WARE the exact process of how software can cause screen corruption(that starts one day out of the blue) or app crashes among completely unrelated processes and I will quit TPU

always start WITH THE HARDWARE and then once the hardware is confirmed to be functioning correctly THEN you move onto testing drivers and software because having a probability of hardware issues makes all the software testing flawed

I am sick of arguing with you on this point mailman every-time you post in a support thread its either
1. its gotta be a bios issue update the bios
2. its gotta be a driver issues try different drivers
3.o its gotta be mspaint causing the gpu drivers to crash
4. naa its a virus inursystemfilesdeleting ur video drivers causing your blackscreen of doom when you power on
:shadedshu
/back on topic
you're card is not officially supported on windows 8 its not fully WDM 1.2 complaint
you have two Options(assuming the rest of the stability issues are resolved)
1. hope Nvidia corrects some of the issues on windows 8
2. upgrade to a more recent gpu a 9500Gt is bloody old

Click to expand...

You always start with software man as software is the cause of MOST PROBLEMS in computers. Ive helped trouble shoot more then a few rigs and it always tends to be software related. Instead of going on a witch hunt with hardware and maybe damaging something its always....ALWAYS good to confirm your "software soup" isn't the culprit.

yes file corruption will cause a crash or a hang 99% of file corrupt is due to a hardware fault
either memory or disk or controller the other 2% is either unclean disk mount/unmount
do you even know what a memory leak is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

I have never seen nor heard of a memory leak where the system (performance wise) was running at acceptable levels but was having serious stability issues(screen corruption random crashes) THAT was caused by a memory leak
in 98% of cases involving a memory leak either the process thats leaking crashes or the system slows to a crawl 2% of the time what can happen is that because of a severe leak you can have process attempting to access a address that does't exist or is mapped incorrectly and even in such a case it would not cause sparattic issues like the op is having it would simply crash and you would beable to repeat it by running t he leaky program in question

you can send a check for 100 internet ego points to getonmylevelson@iknoweverything.com
Iv said all I need to say when it comes to giving the op advice I am not gonna continue to court this argument my Superior ego is about to explode due to its epicwin

yes file corruption will cause a crash or a hang 99% of file corrupt is due to a hardware fault
either memory or disk or controller the other 2% is either unclean disk mount/unmount
do you even know what a memory leak is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

I have never seen nor heard of a memory leak where the system (performance wise) was running at acceptable levels but was having serious stability issues(screen corruption random crashes) THAT was caused by a memory leak
in 98% of cases involving a memory leak either the process thats leaking crashes or the system slows to a crawl 2% of the time what can happen is that because of a severe leak you can have process attempting to access a address that does't exist or is mapped incorrectly and even in such a case it would not cause sparattic issues like the op is having it would simply crash and you would beable to repeat it by running t he leaky program in question

you can send a check for 100 internet ego points to getonmylevelson@iknoweverything.com
Iv said all I need to say when it comes to giving the op advice I am not gonna continue to court this argument my Superior ego is about to explode due to its epicwin

Click to expand...

What experience in how programs work did you get all of this "Superior Ego" Knowledge?

Since the BIOS update, I've had no major issues whatsoever. Everything works fine.

But minor issues such as random flickering and that purple outline issue have appeared. These are barely noticeable but I'm worried they might be a sign that there might be issues again in the future.

But since it's been confirmed that the BIOS update fixed the major issues such as everything crashing and all of the random glitches, it's most likely still a software issue.

Yes, it's still possible that it's a hardware issue, but I doubt it now.

And the 9500 GT's confirmed to work fine with Windows 8. It's on Nvidia's Windows 8 compatibility list.

I agree with MailMan. I've researched a lot of possible issues just in case, and a lot of issues are caused by software. If you work in tech support, I doubt you find that the majority of issues are caused by hardware as most users have pre-built PCs. Just my two cents.

Geez Moar, take a chill pill. I'm not even the one you're aiming your rants at and I feel the sting. Maybe you should take note that the BIOS update did in fact solve the bulk of the problems before you go insisting it's hardware specifically. Either can be suspect, but there's nothing wrong with starting a deductive reasoning troubleshooting via checking software first, and in fact is quite common. A lot of first time builders that think only in terms of hardware and assume no software problems as Jaz was often waste money replacing parts they don't need to.

Jaz, you need to take software updates more seriously. C++ is very necessary, as much so as DirectX. I was having some problems on one particular game and after going to the C++ site and downloading the latest versions of each and their service packs, the problems went away. Make sure your NET Framework is updated too. Don't forget MB chipset drivers too and don't use just the MB driver disc for audio. Go straight to Realtek's page for HD Audio drivers to get the latest ones.

Proper Video driver installs are very important too. Sometimes repeated overwritten installs are only corrected by tools such as Driver Sweeper. Also try beta drivers. That said, you DO need to keep an eye on temps and voltages too. Make sure your GPU and CPU are within normal temps and check your PSU voltages. Also check for bad sectors on your HDD. I wouldn't be surprised though if that GPU is struggling a bit with W8. It's an odd pairing of GPU and OS. Just because Nvidia claims it compatible doesn't mean all the bugs are ironed out.

Everything's now fine. I haven't had any more issues at all. It seems like the BIOS update did it. Not sure whether it was the update itself or just the fact that it reset some of the BIOS settings(though doubtful since I left most settings at default).

Thank you everyone for the help.

The only issue I've had since I solved the graphics issue is a bit of lag but it seems to just be a services issue. Something's slowing my computer down. I'm trying to hunt it down but it's probably just one of the darn video players I rarely use. They're constantly running in the background. Considering just blocking them and only unblocking them when I want to use them. Why the programmers decided to force constant background processes on users is beyond my train of thought. They have nothing to gain from it since there's no tracking service in place and it most certainly does not boost the applications' startup time. Meh. :/Definitely not a virus anyway though. I've done a few virus scans with Kaspersky, AVG, and Windows Defender.(one at a time of course. Uninstalled AVG afterwards since it was while I was migrating to Kaspersky). I've also searched my entire harddrive for any suspicious files.

But ummm... sorry for going a bit off topic then.
Anyway, again, thank you everyone. Everything seems fine now. Still using the same old graphics card unfortunately too. Planning to upgrade soon though.